Encyclopaedia Britannica | English language reference work | Britannica.com English language reference work William Benton Encyclopædia Britannica, the oldest English-language general encyclopaedia . The Encyclopædia Britannica was first published in 1768, when it began to appear in Edinburgh , Scotland . The following account sketches the development of the Encyclopædia Britannica from its Scottish beginnings to its established position as a major English-language work of reference with editorial offices in Chicago and thousands of contributors worldwide. First edition The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published and printed in Edinburgh for the engraver Andrew Bell and the printer Colin Macfarquhar by “a society of gentlemen in Scotland” and was sold by Macfarquhar at his printing office on Nicolson Street. The work was issued from December 1768 to 1771 with double-columned pages. The parts were bound in three stout quarto volumes of some 2,500 pages, with 160 copperplate engravings by Bell, and dated 1771.

The title page begins as follows: “Encyclopædia Britannica; or, a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, compiled upon a new plan.” The work could not compete in bulk with the 68 volumes of Johann Heinrich Zedler’s Universal Lexicon or with the French Encyclopédie , whose 17 volumes of text had recently been completed. But it did challenge comparison with all previous dictionaries of arts and sciences, large or small, because of its new plan. Andrew Bell. encyclopaedia: The development of the modern encyclopaedia (17th–18th centuries) Earlier encyclopaedias—save for Denis de Coëtlogon’s An Universal History of Arts and Sciences (1745)—had not given systematic instruction on major subjects at all, either because they aimed at dealing with such subjects in a more general way (as in the Encyclopédie) or because articles on such subjects used their space chiefly in explanations of the technical terms involved (as in Ephraim Chambers ’s Cyclopaedia ).

Further, in the latter case, the reader wishing merely to learn the meaning of a technical term had to search through a long article before he could find the information he wanted. The “new plan” of the Encyclopædia Britannica consisted of including “ treatises ” on the arts (i.e., practical arts) and sciences in the same alphabetical series as short articles on technical terms and other subjects, with plentiful cross references from the one type of entry to the other. It was thus intended to satisfy two kinds of readers simultaneously: those wishing to study a subject seriously, who would work their way through the treatises; and those in search of quick reference material, who could instantly turn to what they wanted in its alphabetical order. Similar Topics Google Knol There were more than 40 “treatises” in the first edition, indicated by crossheads (i.e., titles printed across the top of the page). Some of them, such as “Anatomy” at 165 pages, covered their subjects at much greater length than, as well as in different ways from, their counterparts in the Encyclopédie, though the shortest, “Alligation” and “Watch and Clock Work,” were only 2 pages long.

A few of the articles without crossheads, such as “Money” at 15 pages and “Mahometans” at 17 pages, exceeded in length some of the treatises . “Smoke,” at 7 pages, instructed the mason on chimney making so that smoky rooms might be avoided. The vast majority of the other articles, however, were only a few lines long, some being hardly more than definitions. There were entries on cities, countries, and rivers and other geographical subjects, but there were no biographies. “Watch and Clock Work” figures from the first edition of the Encyclopædia … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Inserted after the preface in the first volume was a two-page list of the publications used in compiling the work. Thus “Bleaching” was extracted, paragraph after paragraph with only minor editorial changes and a few omissions, from Francis Home, Experiments on Bleaching (1756); “Bookkeeping” similarly from John Mair, Book-keeping Methodiz’d, 2nd ed.

(1741); and “Law,” which dealt only with Scottish law, from John Erskine , Principles of the Law of Scotland: In the Order of Sir George Mackenzie’s Institutions of that Law, 3rd ed. rev. (1764). Two books reprinted almost without change were John Bartlet, The Gentleman Farrier’s Repository, 5th ed. rev. (1764), in “Farriery”; and John Trydell, Two Essays on the Theory and Practice of Music (1766), in “Musick.” Britannica Stories EU Considers Rules For Robots For some articles, however, such as “Aether” and “Abridgement,” new content was written by William Smellie (1740–95), an Edinburgh printer hired to undertake “15 capital sciences,” to “write up the subdivisions and detached parts of these conform to your plan [sic] and likewise to prepare the whole work for the press.” This (quoted from a letter to Smellie from Bell) implies that the new plan was Smellie’s idea.

This inference is supported by Smellie’s biographer, Robert Kerr, who claimed that Smellie devised the plan and wrote or compiled all the chief articles and recorded how he used to say jocularly that he “had made a dictionary of arts and sciences with a pair of scissors.” Later Smellie became Secretary and Superintendent of Natural History and keeper of the museum of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries. William Smellie, editor of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. British Culture and Politics Smellie is generally known as the editor of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, though the biographer of James Tytler claims that Tytler edited both the first and second editions and suggested the idea of such a work to Macfarquhar. The preface to the third edition regards Macfarquhar as the editor of the first and second editions as well as of the first half of the third edition, but the preface to the Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions says that Smellie edited the first.

The first edition was reprinted in London, with slight variants on the title page and a different preface, by Edward and Charles Dilly in 1773 and by John Donaldson in 1775. Second edition The second edition was a much more ambitious work in both length and scope. It was “a dictionary of Arts, Sciences, &c.,” running to 10 volumes of some 9,000 pages. These appeared in parts from June 1777 to September 1784, though the dates on the title pages are 1778–83. The last part of the 10th volume was a supplement that brought the work up to date and corrected errors. There were more treatises than in the first edition, and many new articles, as well as previous articles much increased in length. The plates, again by Bell, numbered 340 (300 according to the edition’s title page). Second edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, title page of volume 10. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest The scope of the second edition was enlarged by the inclusion of biographical articles, by the expansion of geographical articles to become history articles, and in general by the insertion of “Various Detached Parts of Knowledge” (as the title page put it). Further, the treatises were in many cases lengthened by covering not only the practice of the subject concerned but also its history, where ascertainable, and its theory. The second edition thus went beyond the accepted scope of a dictionary of arts and sciences, which was why Smellie, who objected to the biographical material, refused to be its editor. The work was undertaken by James Tytler (1745–1804), a brilliant but penniless polymath described by the Scottish poet Robert Burns as “an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body,” who was later outlawed for printing a seditious handbill and died at Salem, Mass. James Tytler. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The second edition was a revision, though a much enlarged one, of the first, on the same new plan, with some of the treatises reprinted, such as “Geometry”; others enlarged, such as “Commerce,” with a historical section, and “Law,” with a general section and an English section added to the original wholly Scottish article; and others replaced, such as “Gardening,” which was descriptively treated in the second edition, whereas in the first it was only instructional. There were treatises on new subjects such as “Drawing” (5 pages), “Dyeing” (5 pages), “Gunnery” (37 pages), “History” (39 pages), “Legerdemain” (11 pages), “Magnetism” (7 pages), “Oratory” (100 pages), “Painting” (32.5 pages), “Poetry,” treated comprehensively as “the art of expressing our thoughts by fiction” (189.5 pages), and “War” (135.5 pages).

Both “Medicine” (35 pages) and “Optics” (163 pages), which were treated under the three heads of history, theory, and practice, have indexes attached; the new treatise “Pharmacy” (127 pages) also had an index. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies As in the first edition, some of the ordinary articles exceeded some of the treatises in length. The most notable example was “Scotland” (184.5 pages), which covered Scottish history up to the union with the crown of England in 1603 (“Britain,” at 80 pages, continued the story) and gave a general account of the country. “England” had 71 pages of history up to 1603 and 3 pages on New England , and “Rome” had 135, whereas “America” (20 pages) discussed only geography and American Indians. There was an article of just more than 16 pages titled “Blind,” which dealt with educating the blind and cited amazing achievements by certain blind persons.

(That article, reprinted in the third edition and said to have been written by two blind scholars, Henry Moyes and Thomas Blacklock, was perhaps inserted to balance that on “Dumbness” in the first edition.) The supplement in the 10th volume included 25 pages on “Air,” with a detailed description of the recent experiments with balloons in France in 1783 and instructions for making such balloons, an art Tytler attempted unsuccessfully in 1784. At the end of the last volume, more than four pages listed the chief publications used in compiling the second edition, and the preface pointed out how much more expensive it would be to buy them all than to buy the encyclopaedia. In addition, the title page stated that material had also been drawn from “…the Transactions, Journals, and Memoirs, of Learned Societies, Both at Home and Abroad; the MS Lectures of Eminent Professors on Different Sciences; and a Variety of Original Materials, Furnished by an Extensive Correspondence.” It seems that most of the compiling, writing, and editing was done by Tytler.

Third edition Pearl Harbor attack The third edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, “A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature,” was longer than the second, appearing in parts forming 18 volumes of 14,579 pages (1788–97). The same plan was followed, and there were 542 copperplates by Bell . Dedicated by Bell and Macfarquhar to the king (i.e., George III ), it was edited by Macfarquhar until his death in 1793, when he had reached the treatise “Mysteries.” George Gleig (1753–1840), a Scottish Episcopalian clergyman of Stirling who later became bishop of Brechin, took over the work, but the lack of continuity is apparent in various omissions and duplications in the second part of the edition. When the edition was completed, Bell bought the whole copyright. A two-volume supplement edited by Gleig and printed for Thomson Bonar , Bell’s son-in-law, appeared in 1801. It contained 50 copperplates by Daniel Lizars (none by Bell).

Gleig’s dedication of that supplement to the king includes the following remarks: “The French Encyclopédie has been accused, and justly accused, of having disseminated , far and wide, the seeds of Anarchy and Atheism. If the Encyclopædia Britannica shall, in any degree, counteract the tendency of that pestiferous Work, even these two Volumes will not be wholly unworthy of Your Majesty’s Patronage.” The new treatises in the third edition included “Aerostation” (on balloon flights, treated in the supplement to the second edition), “Husbandry,” “Logarithms,” “Polytheism,” and (in the supplement) “Galvanism” (“the influence discovered nearly eight years ago by the celebrated Galvani”), and “Critical Philosophy” (i.e., Kant’s).

Indexes were appended to four more treatises: “Astronomy,” “Chemistry,” “Electricity,” and “Surgery.” As before, many of the ordinary articles exceeded the treatises in length, such as “Revolution” (50 pages, on the French Revolution), “America” (80 pages, covering colonial history and the War of Independence as well as geography and American Indians), “Scripture” (68 pages), “Microscope” (50 pages, which covered both description and use of the instrument), and “Language” and “Telescope” (both 32 pages). Some of the shorter treatises reappeared in the third edition as ordinary articles. Subjects of general interest, such as “Friendship” and “Infidelity,” began to appear, and biographical articles were increased in number and scope; “Paulo (Marco)” was included for the first time, and “Dante” was given more space than in the second edition. Instead of printing a list of publications consulted, as in the two previous editions, the third edition mentioned in the preface the names of the chief contributors.

Certain articles, although not signed in the body of the work, could thus be ascribed to their authors, while others remained reprints of earlier articles originally extracted from books. Macfarquhar’s death left many articles in the first part of the alphabet without a record of authorship, though the preface suggested probable names, such as that of Tytler as the contributor responsible for several of the scientific treatises, including, as might be expected, “Aerostation.” John Robison, professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh, provided various treatises and other articles, besides being readily available for consultation. The editor, Gleig, wrote or collaborated on about 20 main subjects and must in fact have compiled a great many of the shorter articles. Most of the contributors were distinguished Scottish scholars of the period, and the edition was a worthy monument to Edinburgh’s “Augustan Age.” According to Robert Kerr, about 10,000 copies of the third edition were printed, and the profit to Bell and Macfarquhar’s heirs was £42,000.

According to Archibald Constable , an enterprising Edinburgh publisher, who bought the copyright of it from Bell’s heirs for £14,000 and the copyright of the Supplement to the third edition from Bonar for £100, 13,000 copies were sold. There were two pirated editions of the third edition. Thomas Dobson, a printer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, published a reprint titled simply Encyclopædia (which he called the first American edition), with some parts rewritten to correct British bias. James Moore’s Dublin reprint (1791–97) was an exact reproduction of the third edition, with the addition of “Moore’s Dublin Edition” at the top of the title page and his imprint at the foot and with some minor changes in the title page wording. Fourth edition The fourth edition appeared from 1801 to 1809, and when completed it was bound in 20 volumes of 16,033 pages, dated 1810. The first volume of the complete edition was prefaced by a dedication to the king written by Bell before his death in 1809.

Essentially, it was a revised reprint of the third edition, with two additional volumes to include new and enlarged treatises, extra pages to bring history articles up to date, and more biographical articles. However, the fourth edition excluded the supplement to the third edition, of which Bell did not possess the copyright. The editor, James Millar (1762–1827), an Edinburgh physician and natural scientist, took pains to repair the deficiencies caused in the third edition by the untimely death of Macfarquhar. He reorganized some of the material to avoid omissions and duplications, and in particular he tried to repair omissions among the biographies. The fourth edition was the earliest in which articles appeared on Amurath (i.e., Murad, the name of several Ottoman sultans), the Croatian astronomer and mathematician Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich (titled “Roger Joseph Boscovich”), the ancient Greek physician Galen, the French general Lazare Hoche (titled “Lazarus Hoche”), the English scholar Sir Henry Savile, and the Scottish political economist Adam Smith . “America” was brought up to 1800 and quoted the U.S.

constitution, while Britain’s history was brought up to 1803, India’s to 1804, and Spain’s to 1809. There were several treatises on new subjects such as “Conchology,” “Mammalia,” “Political Economy,” and “Science, Amusements or Recreations of,” a title defended as follows: “It must not be supposed…that the subjects which we are here to discuss are puerile or trifling. They will be such as are best calculated to excite the attention, quicken the ingenuity, and improve the memory of our young readers.” Some of the treatises were different from those in the previous edition, such as “Galvanism” (which first appeared in the supplement to which Bell did not own copyright) and “Midwifery,” while others were enlarged. Among the latter was “Gardening,” which reprinted the descriptive piece from the second and third editions and added to it a new section with practical instructions for each month of the year that reverted to the treatment in the first edition. As in the third edition, notable contributors were singled out in the preface, which was itself largely reprinted from the third edition.

Several treatises, however, still remained anonymous; although Millar did not claim to have written any, he may well have done so. Fifth and sixth editions The fifth edition was a corrected reprint of the fourth, and the sixth was a reprint of the fifth with some articles brought up to date. Both were of small importance compared with the Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions, which were being concurrently prepared and printed. Fifth edition The fifth edition, on which work started immediately after the fourth was finished in 1810, was completed in 20 volumes, dated 1815, and sold at a price of £36. After the first five volumes, which were supervised by Bonar , it was again edited by Millar and was brought out by Constable . On Bonar’s death in 1814, Constable bought his share in the third edition from his heirs for £4,500. Realizing the inadequacy of simply reprinting the fourth edition, Constable at once began planning supplementary volumes, which started to appear at the end of 1815, the year that the fifth edition was completed.

Before the supplementary volumes were themselves completed in 1824, however, a sixth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica had been published. Archibald Constable. December 6 1768 – Encyclopædia Britannica is published for the first time - On this day in History Things to do in Los Angeles December 6 1768 – Encyclopædia Britannica is published for the first time The iconic Encyclopædia Britannica was the brainchild of the printer and bookseller Colin Macfarquhar and the engraver Andrew Bell. In 1778, the Scottish printer and his partner formed the “Society of Gentlemen” and hired the erudite William Smellie to come up with an encyclopedia that could be alphabetically aligned. The Encyclopædia Britannica made its debut in Edinburgh in Scotland. Volume I of the first edition was released on December 6, 1768. The initial volume was sold for a price of 6 to 8 pence depending on the quality of paper. By 1771, three-volume set was completed.

In all some 3,000 copies of the first set were sold. The 2,391-page complete first edition was sold for a cost of about 12 pounds sterling. The original editions also included elaborate illustrations, a number of which were by Andrew Bell himself. Macfarquhar was inspired by the success of the 35 volume French Encyclopédie which consisted of 71,818 articles, and 3,129 illustrations. The French Encyclopédie later grew to contain 166 volumes written by 2,250 contributors including illustrious names such as Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire. Smellie and his colleagues focused on the utility of their encyclopedia, which grouped topics together in an alphabetical order. He made allowances for scholastic errors in favor of utility. Smellie said, “With regard to errors in general, whether falling under the denomination of mental, typographical or accidental, we are conscious of being able to point out a greater number than any critic whatever. Men who are acquainted with the innumerable difficulties of attending the execution of a work of such an extensive nature will make proper allowances.

To these we appeal, and shall rest satisfied with the judgment they pronounce.” The earliest editions were hounded by a number of concerns, especially the question of plagiarism. Smellie seems to have borrowed liberally and literally from many famous writings, often without credit. With an increase in appeal and with contributions pouring in, this problem was eliminated. Starting with the Third Edition, the Encyclopædia Britannica started to enjoy immense popularity in both the US and the UK. This soon spread to almost all the nations that were part of the British Empire. The issue of piracy was a concern that regularly plagued the encyclopedia. A number of pirated versions became popular before the Britannica partnered for print in the US. The encyclopedia’s editorial team has often received criticism for the choice of topics included and also for the approach taken towards topics such as Hinduism. The Encyclopædia Britannica began to include contributions from many eminent personalities including scientists, writers, entertainers, and US Presidents. Some of the better known names include A C Swinburne, Albert Einstein, James G Frazer, Harry Houdini, Leon Trotsky, Marie Curie, Sigmund Freud, and Walter Scott.

The final print edition of the encyclopedia featured about 65,000 articles written by 4,000 contributors, including the likes of Ian Rankin, Desmond Tutu and Bill Clinton After 244 years of publication, in 2012 Encyclopedia Britannica decided to stop production of its iconic multi-volume print edition encyclopedias. The announcement came on March 13, 2012 but according to the Britannica president Jorge Cauz the move was made in the best interests of the business since the print version represented only about 1% of the company's sales. The company’s blog post announced that the 2010 edition 32-volume 129-pound set would be its last. Britannica’s decision to concentrate its attention on its digital encyclopedia and on coming up with numerous education tools such as mobile applications was part of its natural evolution, the company said. In 1981, Britannica came up with the first digital encyclopedia in the world. In 1989, it launched its first set of multimedia encyclopedia available on CD ROM. The first Internet version of Britannica went online in 1994.

By the turn of the millennium, Encyclopædia Britannica had started to launch mobile applications. Another decade later, it partnered with Apple creating an app that would put the entire encyclopedia on Apple devices. Taking the print edition off the racks has saddened Britannica loyalists and book lovers around the globe and the final 12,000 set edition sold like hot cakes for an official price of $1,395 per set. Encyclopædia Britannica is now fully digital in an acknowledgement of technological evolution and to accord the encyclopedia a “bigger, more numerous, more vibrant” format. 6th December, 1956 - Nelson Mandela & 156 others arrested for political activities in South Africa.﻿ 6th December, 1424 - Don Alfonso V of Aragon grants Barcelona the right to exclude Jews. 6th December, 1534 - Quito, Ecuador, founded by Spanish. 6th December, 1897 - London becomes the world's first city to host licenced taxicabs. 6th December, 1912 - China votes for universal human rights.

You may also like : Encyclopaedia Britannica | print encyclopaedia | Britannica.com Clifton Fadiman Encyclopædia Britannica, the oldest and longest continually published English-language general print encyclopaedia , first issued in 1768 and retired in 2012 in favour of its electronic versions. The first edition consisted of 100 parts, or “fascicles,” that were issued serially between 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and bound into three volumes, while the 15th edition, printed for the last time in 2010, spanned 32 volumes. A product of the Scottish Enlightenment , the Encyclopædia Britannica was born and developed in the same intellectual ferment that produced such figures as Adam Smith , Sir Walter Scott , Robert Burns , David Hume , Adam Ferguson , and James Boswell . Origins and early editions Colin Macfarquhar , a printer, and Andrew Bell , an engraver, formed a “Society of Gentlemen” to publish the new reference work, hiring the 28-year-old scholar William Smellie as editor.

Arranged alphabetically and “compiled upon a new plan in which the different Sciences and Arts are digested into distinct Treatises or Systems,” the first edition included 40 treatises as well as short entries on technical terms and other subjects, with cross-references from the one type of entry to the other. In addition, there were 160 copper engravings by Bell. Its chief virtue was, in the editor’s word, “utility,” and the intended audience was the general reader, “any man of ordinary parts.” Andrew Bell. “Watch and Clock Work” figures from the first edition of the Encyclopædia … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Smellie’s job as editor included compiling, editing, and writing. Among the 127 works cited in the edition’s “list of authors” are the names of Benjamin Franklin and John Locke . Smellie’s task was to compile their writings on electricity and philosophy, respectively, and to edit them into entries for the Britannica. Wherever Smellie lacked a satisfactory outside source for an entry, he wrote the article himself; hundreds of articles were doubtless composed by him.

An estimated 3,000 sets of the first edition were sold at £12 each. William Smellie, editor of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Encarta Encouraged by the success of the first edition, the publishers issued a second edition in 10 volumes between 1777 and 1784. Unlike the first edition, the second contained biographies, 340 engravings by Bell, and a list more than four pages long of chief publications used in its compilation . The preface pointed out how much more expensive it would be to buy all these sources than to buy the encyclopaedia. Second edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, title page of volume 10. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The third edition, completed in 18 volumes in 1797, contained 542 engravings by Bell and was the first to include a dedication (to King George III ) and articles by outside contributors. The fourth edition in 20 volumes was completed in 1810.

Literary piracy was already an issue, a pirated version of the third edition by Thomas Dobson appearing in Philadelphia in 1790. George Washington , Thomas Jefferson , and Alexander Hamilton all owned copies. The fifth edition, a reprinting of the fourth with corrections, was published in 1815. The sixth edition, published between 1820 and 1823, included updates to some articles. The beginnings of a scholarly tradition Contributions to the Britannica from the leading scholars of the day first appeared in a six-volume Supplement, published in 1815–24, to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions. This Supplement was a new venture in more ways than one: almost all the articles were original signed contributions by some of the most distinguished British (and a few French) scholars of the day, including Sir Walter Scott (who wrote on chivalry , among other topics), Thomas Malthus (on population ), David Ricardo , James Mill , and Thomas Young . Young’s pioneering efforts to penetrate the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone were first published in the Britannica.

It also included, outside the regular alphabetical sequence, three dissertations on the progress of the philosophy of mind since the Renaissance. Britannica’s long-standing practice of soliciting critiques of entries from advisers first began with this Supplement. Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, 1870. © Photos.com/Jupiterimages Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent The seventh edition, published in 1830–42, contained 21 volumes and was the first to include an index. The eighth edition, published in 1852–60, contained 21 volumes and a separate index volume. The eighth edition also contained the first American contributions and the first articles on such new subjects as photography, communism, and the telegraph (electric). Famous Documents The ninth edition, published in 1875–89 and referred to as the “scholar’s edition,” embodied as no other publication of the day the scientific discoveries and new critical methods that were transforming the world of scholarship. In its pages T.H. Huxley propounded Charles Darwin ’s theory of evolution, and W. Robertson Smith , editor of the encyclopaedia, applied the “higher criticism” to biblical literature.

The poet Algernon Swinburne wrote on John Keats , Robert Louis Stevenson on Pierre-Jean de Béranger , Peter Kropotkin on anarchism, and James G. Frazer contributed articles on totemism and taboo. Altogether, 1,100 contributors, including 70 from the United States and approximately 60 from continental Europe, worked on the encyclopaedia. It was the first edition to include birth and death dates of individuals and the first to contain bibliographies. Also, it was the first edition to appear in an authorized printing in the United States, and more sets were sold in the United States than in Britain. Robert Louis Stevenson. Brown Brothers A special reprint of the ninth edition was marketed through an arrangement with The Times of London, in which The Times advertised and took orders and received a commission for each set sold. The set was sold on the installment plan, a novelty in the marketing of books at that time. An advertisement in The Times for the Encyclopædia … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest The 10th edition (1902–03) consisted of an 11-volume supplement to the ninth, with volume numbers beginning with 25, where the ninth left off. The 34th volume was an atlas with more than 120 maps and a gazetteer. The 35th volume contained a combined index to volumes 1–34, a combined list of contributors, and a key to the abbreviated symbols used as signatures to the articles—including, for the first time, “X.,” signifying anonymity. Also for the first time, biographical articles on living persons, representing not merely heads of state but also prominent figures in various walks of life, were introduced. Such biographical articles, left unsigned, were often illustrated with text engravings of their subjects. The plates included a number of reproductions of works of art. Map of Berlin (c. 1900), from the 10th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. In the early 1900s the British editorial department moved from Edinburgh to London, and Franklin H.

Hooper , an associate editor in New York , was in charge of editorial work in the United States. The preface to the 10th edition pointed out that “these supplementary volumes are the product of the New World as well as of the Old.” The 11th edition and its successors The 11th edition (1910–11), in 29 volumes, was produced in cooperation with the University of Cambridge , and the strength and confidence of much of its writing marked the high point of Edwardian optimism and perhaps of the British Empire itself. By this time ownership of the Britannica had passed to two Americans. The 11th edition revived the third edition’s dedication to the king, adding the name of William Howard Taft , president of the United States, to that of George V in a dual dedication that thereafter became standard. The 11th edition was different from earlier editions and encompassed several innovations: longer articles were broken up into three or four entries to make the content more accessible; the prose was simplified to improve readability; and, instead of a separate atlas, maps were distributed throughout the volumes on plates or folding papers. There was also a classified table of contents inserted in volume 29.

It was not exhaustive but placed together “under the obvious headings, main and subsidiary, those articles which are necessary to the understanding of a given subject.” Notable contributors to the 11th edition included Joseph Lister and Alfred North Whitehead . Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Three and later six supplemental volumes to the 11th edition resulted in the 12th (1921–22) and 13th (1926) editions, whose contributors included Marie Curie (on radium ), W.E.B. Du Bois (on African American literature ), Albert Einstein (on space-time ), Sigmund Freud (on psychoanalysis ), Harry Houdini (on conjuring ), H.L. Mencken , and Leon Trotsky (on Lenin ). The article “Mass Production” was signed by Henry Ford but is believed to have been written by his personal publicist. The 13th edition followed the 12th by only four years because the latter had been produced too soon after the end of World War I to give an objective account of the period.

The 13th aimed to show what really happened between 1910 and 1925 (without dwelling on the details of the conduct of the war). The political situation, however, still remained confused, so “the principle of Olympian judgment practiced by the Encyclopædia Britannica at long leisure in more stable times” was abandoned in favour of letting each nation’s spokesman give its own account of its affairs since 1910. Albert Einstein. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. By the time the 24-volume 14th edition appeared in 1929, the principal operations of the company had moved to the United States. The rapid changes in the world since the publication of the 11th edition meant that no one editor could claim the omniscience that would have been needed to organize the whole field of human knowledge. Thus, for the 14th edition there were more than 50 associate editors in London and New York who advised on their own subjects, while the coordinating work was performed by staffs in both offices. With this edition, editorial staff became a permanent fixture of the company.

Continuous revision of the encyclopaedia began when the company’s headquarters were moved to Chicago in the mid-1930s. Starting in 1936, a new printing was published each year, incorporating the latest changes and updates. In 1938 the first edition of the Britannica Book of the Year appeared.Well-known contributors to the 14th edition included Lon Chaney , G.K. Chesterton , Cecil B. DeMille (on directing ), Alfred Hitchcock (on film production ), Herbert Hoover , Lyndon B. Johnson , John F. Kennedy , Margaret Mead , Arthur Murray , Jonas Salk , and Orville Wright . John F. Kennedy. Eyjafjallajökull volcano In 1974, for a 15th edition, the Britannica was radically restructured into three parts serving different functions: the Micropædia: Ready Reference and Index; the Macropædia: Knowledge in Depth; and the Propædia: Outline of Knowledge. The articles in the Micropædia were short, specific, and unsigned and were followed (until 1985) by index references to related content elsewhere in the set.

The Micropædia also included brief summaries of the longer, broader Macropædia articles. The Propædia provided a topical guide to the encyclopaedia as well as information about the contributors. The 15th edition had a global perspective with more than 4,000 contributing authors from more than 100 countries. Well-known contributors included Isaac Asimov , David Ben-Gurion , Jimmy Carter , Steven Chu , Milton Friedman , Thor Heyerdahl , Isaac Bashevis Singer , and Jody Williams . The editorial creation of the work cost $32 million exclusive of printing costs, representing the largest single private investment in publishing history up to that time. A major revision was published in 1985, bringing the size of the set to 32 volumes. Steven Chu. Roy Kaltschmidt/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory From the 1960s Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., became actively involved in international publishing, with localized print versions of the Encyclopædia Britannica available in nine languages other than English: Japanese, Korean, traditional and simplified Chinese, French, Greek, Turkish, Hungarian, and Polish.

In 2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., decided to discontinue publication of the English-language print version of the Encyclopædia Britannica and focus its editorial and marketing energies on the already popular digital versions of the encyclopaedia for online, tablet, and mobile users around the world. (The Britannica had been the first encyclopaedia on the Internet in 1994.) As of 2012, 7.1 million print sets of the Britannica had been sold in more than 130 countries. Art from the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–71) Art from the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–71) Illustration of a male human skeleton. Illustration of the bones in a human hand. Illustration of a juvenile human hip joint. Illustration of the muscles and glands of the human head. Illustration of the organs in the human abdomen and thorax. Illustration of posterior musculature.

Encyclopedia Britannica to cut its print edition - after 244 YEARS | Daily Mail Online comments As the march of the iPad and Kindle continues unabated, the oldest manufacturer of encyclopedias has become one of the first major book publishing casualties of the digital age by cutting out its entire print operation. The Encyclopedia Britannica, which has been in continuous print since it was first published in Edinburgh in 1768, said today that it will continue with digital versions currently available online. The final set of the 32-volume printed edition remains available for sale on the company's website for £890 ($1,400). Scroll down for video What a run: Encyclopedia Britannica is the longest-running manufacturer of printed encyclopedias, with its first edition printed in Scotland in 1768 ...

but the title will live on as Britannica produces digital versions available online VOLUMES BY NUMBERS Just 8,500 2010 editions shipped Visitors to Britannica's websites (including Merriam-Webster dictionaries) in 2011: 450million users Jorge Cauz, Encyclopedia Britannica's president, said the top year for the printed encyclopedia was 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold. By 1996, that number had fallen to just 40,000. An online subscription costs around £45 ($70) per year and the company recently launched a set of apps ranging between £1.20 ($1.99) and £3 ($4.99) per month. The company said it will keep selling print editions until the current stock of around 4,000 sets runs out. Mr Cauz added: 'The print edition became more difficult to maintain and wasn't the best physical element to deliver the quality of our database and the quality of our editorial'.

Britannica is one of many traditional publishers which has embraced the digital age with a range of online products but it has struggled with financial losses. RELATED ARTICLES Share Mr Cauz admitted to a 'long road to profitability' for many publishers. 'Britannica was one of the first companies to really feel the full impact of technology, maybe 20 years ago, and we have been adapting to it, though it is very difficult at times,' he said. While Encyclopedia Britannica has continued to operate, he expected 'many trade publishers will not survive - and any content development company will have to be thinking about how they are going to fill the gap.' Struggle: Even as the publishing industry has created more digital products, Britannica has fought with financial losses WIKI THREAT TO BRITANNICA? Although Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz, does not see Wikipedia as a threat, the statistics make interesting reading. Total visitors to Britannica's websites last year numbered 450million. Daily traffic to Wikipedia is around 100million hits, which equates to more than 36 BILLION hits a year.

And as the snapshot survey (see below) reveals, 45% of youngsters polled have never used a print encyclopedia - yet more than three-quarters have used Wikipedia. In Britannica's favour is the fact that, unlike Wikipedia, it is not an open source tool that can be edited by anyone. So, if it's accuracy people want (and there are plenty examples of wiki text being amended inaccurately), Mr Cauz clearly hopes those with a thirst for knowledge will head for his company's websites. As to whether print editions of books will be viable products in the future, Mr Cauz predicted, 'print may not completely vanish from the market, but I think it is going to be increasingly less important'. With its scholarly, reliable reputation, Mr Cauz said Encyclopedia Britannica had not been affected by the popularity of Wikipedia. Last year, the company unveiled its own iPhone and iPad apps. Mr Cauz told CNN: 'The print set is an icon. But it's an icon that doesn't do justice to how much we've changed over the years'. The death of the print edition of Britannica echoes the rise of the techno-savvy consumer.

In terms of space-saving, practicality and cost, there is much to be said for e-books - something independent bookstores would dispute, as they are fast becoming endangered species. Although digital books have been around for more than two decades, it is only in recent times that the long-predicted explosion in electronic reading has come to take hold. In 2010, e-books accounted for 6 per cent of all books sold in the UK, with sales more than doubling every year. And in the US, Amazon now sells more e-books than hardbacks and paperbacks combined. 'An encyclopedia? It's something you cook with': Rise of the digital generation... A quarter of children do not know what an encyclopaedia is, with one in ten thinking it is something you cook with, travel on, use to catch a ball or to perform an operation. The research findings, from Birmingham Science City, give an insight into the growing use of digital resources compared to print counterparts.

Below is a snapshot of the results of the survey of 500 six to 15-year-olds across the UK: Almost half (45%) have never used a print encyclopaedia, yet more than three quarters (76%) have used Wikipedia. The majority (54%) of six to 15-year-olds admit Google is their first point of call when they have a question. Nearly a fifth (19%) have never used a print dictionary. The majority (91%) of children use Google, with almost half (47%) 'Googling' at least five times a day and a fifth (18%) using the search engine ten times or more daily. When Google is not able to help, a fifth of children would then look to Wikipedia for answers. The results show that while youngsters are clued up on how to search the net, few are as comfortable with more traditional sources of information.

WHEN BRITANNICA RULED: A HISTORY OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIA A rare first edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, from 1768 Mid-1700s: Edinburgh was a cradle of learning - home to novelist Sir Walter Scott, poet Robert Burns and diarist James Boswell. To chronicle this age of Scottish enlightenment, printer Colin Macfarquhar and engraver Andrew Bell decided to publish a reference work, bringing on board 28-year-old scholar William Smellie to act as editor. Their volumes would be sorted alphabetically and 'compiled upon a new plan in which the different Sciences and Arts are digested into distinct Treatises or Systems' - and its hallmark would be, in the words of its editor, 'utility'. Britannica's first edition was published in 'fascicles' - one section at a time - over three years, from 1768. It was finished three years later and sold out. Building on this success, another edition - this time in ten volumes - was brought out between 1777 and 1784. 1790: It did not take long for news of the encyclopedia to reach America.

A pirated version was printed in Philadelphia by Thomas Dobson. Dropping the name Britannica, parts were rewritten to serve its US audience - and other tweaks included omitting the dedication to King George III. 1797: A third edition of 18 volumes was produced. For the first time, articles from outside contributors were also featured. A fourth edition in 1809 contained 20 volumes. Eminent 19th century scholars continued to add their contributions - with fascinating treatises on subjects such as the Rosetta Stone and Egyptian hieroglyphics. 1875-89: The ninth edition - known as the 'scholar's edition' - was published.It outlined many scientific discoveries: a study of Darwin's theory of evolution; a critique on biblical literature; and other topics of discussion included John Keats, anarchism and taboo. 1910-11: An 11th edition was published in association with Cambridge University. By this point, two Americans had taken over ownership of Britannica - Horace Hooper and Walter Jackson.

Contributors to the 12th (1921-22) and 13th (1926) editions included such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Leon Trotsky and Harry Houdini. 1929: The company had almost completely shifted its operation to the States - and a permanent editorial team was established in Chicago. Under the leadership of William Benton, who later became a senator, the company expanded by purchasing Compton’s Encyclopedia, the dictionary publisher G. & C. Merriam (later Merriam-Webster, Inc.) and others. 1981: The first digital version of the the encyclopedia was produced - and also made the first multimedia CD-ROM encyclopedia, Compton's MultiMedia Encyclopedia, in 1989. By the 1990s, Britannica had produced or was at work on encyclopedias and other educational materials in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Italy, France, Spain, Latin America, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and elsewhere. 1994: The company developed Britannica Online, the first encyclopedia for the Internet, making the entire text available worldwide.

That year, the first version of the Britannica on CD-ROM was also published. Watch video here Encyclopædia Britannica. Britannica Encyclopedia Online History of Britannica Origins The Encyclopædia Britannica was born in 18th-century Edinburgh amid the great intellectual ferment known as the Scottish Enlightenment. It was there and then that Adam Smith prepared The Wealth of Nations, Sir Walter Scott wrote novels, Robert Burns poetry, David Hume and Adam Ferguson philosophy, and James Boswell grew to manhood and attended the university. According to one chronicler of Britannica history, Edinburgh in the mid-1700s was "a city on the verge of a golden age, a center of learning and a home of writers, thinkers, and philosophers, wags, wits, and teachers." It was against this setting that Colin Macfarquhar, a printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver, decided to create an encyclopedia that would serve the new era of scholarship and enlightenment. They formed a "Society of Gentlemen" to publish their new reference work and hired the twenty-eight-year-old scholar William Smellie to edit it.

It would be arranged alphabetically, "compiled upon a new plan in which the different Sciences and Arts are digested into distinct Treatises or Systems," and its chief virtue was to be, in the editor’s word, "utility." The first edition of the Britannica was published one section at a time, in "fascicles," over a three-year period, beginning in 1768. The three-volume set was completed in 1771 and quickly sold out. Encouraged by the success of the first edition, the publishers issued the second edition in 10 volumes (1777-84). The third edition, completed in 1797 and the first to include articles by outside contributors, comprised 18 volumes; the fourth, completed in 1809, boasted 20. The Encyclopædia Britannica first came to the United States in the form of a pirated edition printed in Philadelphia in 1790 by Thomas Dobson. Owners of that set included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton.

Contributions from the leading scholars of the day began with a set of six volumes published in 1815-24 as a supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions. Contributors included Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, James Mill, and Thomas Young, whose pioneering efforts to penetrate the mystery of the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone first saw light of day under the Britannica imprint. The ninth edition, published in 1875-89, is often remembered as the "scholar's edition." It embodied as no other publication of the day the transformation of scholarship wrought by scientific discovery and new critical methods. In its pages Thomas Henry Huxley propounded Darwin's theory of evolution and W. Robertson Smith, editor of the encyclopedia, applied the "higher criticism" to biblical literature. The poet A.C. Swinburne wrote on John Keats, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin on anarchism, and James G. Frazer contributed articles on totemism and taboo.

Twentieth Century The eleventh edition (1910-11) was produced in cooperation with Cambridge University, and though by then ownership of the Britannica had passed to two Americans, Horace Hooper and Walter Jackson, the strength and confidence of much of its writing marked the high point of Edwardian optimism and perhaps of the British Empire itself. The addition of three and later six supplemental volumes resulted in the twelfth (1921-22) and thirteenth (1926) editions. Contributors to those editions included Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Leon Trotsky, Harry Houdini, H.L. Mencken, and W.E.B. Du Bois. The article "Mass Production" was signed by Henry Ford but is believed actually to have been written by his personal publicist. By the time the thoroughly revised fourteenth edition appeared in 1929, the principal operations of the company had moved to the United States. Other important changes took place. Whereas previously the editorial staff would be disbanded after the completion of a new edition, the company now maintained a permanent editorial department whose job was to keep pace with the rapid growth of knowledge.

The encyclopedia began to undergo continuous revision when the company’s headquarters moved to Chicago in the mid-1930s, and starting in 1936 a new printing was published each year, incorporating the latest changes and updates. In 1938, the first edition of the Britannica Book of the Year appeared. The yearbook is still published today. In 1943 William Benton, a founder of the advertising agency Benton and Bowles and later a U.S. senator, became chairman of the board and publisher. Under his leadership the company expanded by purchasing Compton’s Encyclopædia, the dictionary publisher G. & C. Merriam (later Merriam-Webster, Inc.), and other properties. Britannica also extended its publishing activities abroad during this period. Benton led the company until his death, in 1973.

The publishing landmarks of his era were Great Books of the Western World, a 54-volume collection published in 1952 (a second, revised edition, in 60 volumes, was issued in 1990); and the innovative fifteenth edition of the Britannica, in 30 volumes, in 1974. A major revision was published in 1985, bringing the size of the set to 32 volumes. By the 1990s Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., had produced or was at work on encyclopedias and other educational materials in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Italy, France, Spain, Latin America, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and elsewhere. Britannica was an early leader in electronic publishing and new media. In 1981, under an agreement with Mead Data Central, the first digital version of the Encyclopædia Britannica was created for the Lexis-Nexis service. Britannica also created the first multimedia CD-ROM encyclopedia, Compton's MultiMedia Encyclopædia, in 1989.

In 1994 the company developed Britannica Online, the first encyclopedia for the Internet, which made the entire text of the Encyclopædia Britannica available worldwide. That year the first version of the Britannica on CD-ROM was also published.

Question: In which city was the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' first published in 1768?
Answer: EDINBURGH